Fathom Synth Development Thread

[BBFG#]

Beware of going to the extremes of "all or nothing".
Having no licensing system can be almost as bad as a locked system that even prevents legitimate users from using it without issue.

Almost all of us like U-he and they use a simple system that to some degree puts a faith in their customers' integrity. And it seems to mostly pay off for them.
Not having anything keeps me suspicious as then I know something I may not be able to live with could be implemented at any time.

That makes me take a wait and see position on purchasing.

iLok/PACE/EDEN is something which is a complete "never" for many of us, but still okay with some. If that is implemented, make it an option, not a requirement. The same applies to eLicense. Either will always be controversial. As I stated before, the system you offered before often works great on install but often demands repeating to the point of not wanting to use it anymore. Korg & Karma both have ended up on disk in the desk drawer because of this. The Peavey USB method has ultimately killed USB ports that I couldn't get back until I reformatted the whole machine. Pay attention to the horror stories. Vile as they can be, they show the frustration of bad experiences. The main reason I hate a couple of these protection schemes is the developers of them never listen and instead employ their circular argument ad nauseum.

Something I teach in "spiritual cognition" to my dual diagnosis clients is to hold their actions to being "simple, effective & meaningful". The middle path is the goal here IMO.

[Jorgeelalto]

Everett, you really do seem like a nice honest guy, and I hope you settle on something that works for you. (Even if it's something that doesn't work for me).

But I'm sure you're aware you're not going to stop crackers just by going the C/R route? These people create keygens for products they're not even interested in, just to sharpen their skills. And sometimes, just for fun.

Take Sylenth, for instance. Great sound, low cpu, quite user friendly, and online activation. A winning combo. And one of the most heavily pirated VSTi of all time. The online activation didn't deter the crackers, it was just an extra step.

And yet, Sylenth is still one of the most well known synths on the market. Do you think it would be so popular if he had gone the dongle route? IMO no way.

And this is what a lot of developers don't seem to understand. 99% of the people who use cracks have no interest whatsoever in spending money on software.
I have friends who look at me like I'm mentally ill when i tell them I buy my software. These people are not potential customers. There is far too much readily available.
The only way you would get their money, is by offering them something indispensable to their genre, with no other way of getting it.

And now look at the other, smaller group of people. the ones you are interested in.
When I started converting all my software from cracks to paid, the only things that interested me were "how much do I use this?" "can I live without this?" "is this a stable plugin that i can see myself using for years?"
And you know what the first synth I bought was? Vember Audio Surge. Surge didn't even have a keyfile, he just gave you a link on purchase for the full version.
When I bought it, I knew it was pretty much a finished product and wouldn't get much in the way of updates, and I also had the exact thing I was purchasing already on my hard drive, downloaded from a shady site.
But I bought it anyway!

So you see, it's like the crack users in reverse. I bought the synth because i wanted to, not because I had to. It's a mindset.
When I was using this shady russian site, there is literally nothing you could have said to me to make me spend money on a piece of audio software. It just didn't seem logical to me.
I had to wait for my mindset to change, and when that happened, ALL the cracks went. And I'll say this: if Vember Audio was C/R, they wouldn't have got my money. I would have been forced to phase them out, like I did with Wave Arts, and Izotope etc.

As a side note, one thing I noticed, when I went legit, my music quality increased dramatically.
Sounds ridiculous, but I guess when you put financial input into something, your subconcious realises this is actually an important thing, and suddenly all my techniques and ideas started coming together.

Dude this is exactly the same I feel too. I also buy with future expectations (will it work 2, 5, 10 years from now assuming Windows compatibility?), and I also get weird faces when I tell my friends I buy software. "Why though, if you can download it for free?". I have a friend who's building a semipro home studio (expensive mics, soundcard, monitors...) and he's not buying any software. And I can assure you he would not buy even if his plugins couldn't be pirated anymore, he would just use other different plugins.

From my point of view, plugins are almost always crackable, and if it's not crackable you are paying a lot of money to the maker of your license protection scheme. It's not a matter of whether I can pirate your plugin or I have to buy it - if people cannot pirate it, they won't buy it either (there are rare cases in which this may happen, but not enough IMO).

And for legit users, there are some that don't mind iLok or C/R or any online protection thing, but there are others (like me) who do not support these kind of things. I buy Reaper, I buy stuff from Sugar Bytes, SPC Plugins, Hornet, Klanghelm, and I don't mind paying whatever (reasonable) amount for them, but I would like them to work if the business closes, if my hard drive crashes, if a day before I have to finish a project the license server is not online. I don't know, maybe it's the paranoia of the computer hobbyist who wants to be under control of everything about their computer, but there's other people like me. And I also want to reward the developers who make DRM-free stuff, since it's the way I would like the software to be.

On the other hand, I understand why you would want to implement some kind of copy protection. I just think it does not work (or, it works sometimes, but not as many as we would like).

Personally, I want to congratulate you for the development of this synth. I've been curious about it since it started in this forum and I value your work and the comunnity as well. I don't use Fathom - not even the Mono version, but I just wanted to tell you my point of view I also understand my opinion is one from hundreds.

Edit: If I had to use a CP for my software, I would use serial or keyfile. That's what I buy.

[glokraw]

I have parasites who look at me like I'm mentally ill when i tell them I buy my software.
These people are not potential friends.

I corrected the spelling on part of your post above.
Nice to hear that your music improved when you purchased your software

[BBFG#]

Another thing to consider when implementing your system...
Some of them work differently with different ISP types. (Satellite, DSL, etc.)
My personal experience has been that Native Instruments and Camel Audio both would not connect to satellite servers although Camel connected to everything else flawlessly and NI has been a crap shoot on any of the others. Interestingly, NI website servers connect to all of them, but they seem to have a separate one for their Access manager that has been a non sequitur nightmare for more than a few of us. Although once authorized, both were fine.
The ones I mentioned before were the greatest problems when after a time, they suddenly lost their authorization and demanded a reconnection/reauthorization before starting. Which means just sitting then down and using something else until I block time a "maintenance day". Too many of those and they're headed off the machine permanently.

[Tj Shredder]

Madrona Labs personalize the software with the key file. It would always display the name of the owner. If that appears on any warez site it can be blocked for future updates and the relation to the dev will be broken. One could also have the password to unpack be personalized. You would have to log in to access a personalized zip and only you have that password. Both methods would protect it in a way that is not much more hassle as its now, but would not bind it to a specific hardware, and a broken or stolen computer would not throw you off either...
In case of a stolen computer, you ask for a new serial and the old could be blocked...
All options which would still give a better protection as it is now while keeping it simple for the customer...

[glokraw]

Reaper and U-he also display the licensee's name.
The most screentime I ever get

[AJYoung]

One could also have the password to unpack be personalized. You would have to log in to access a personalized zip and only you have that password

When I bought Fathom, I was really surprised this wasn't the case when using a password locked zip file.

I'm all for a stronger Copy-Protection system. At least individual serial-based. As it stands now, the single password would be far too easy to share.

[courtjestr]

Just bought the Fathom Pro Ultimate bundle. I love the synth and the interface. One thing has me wondering though. The bundle is suppose to includes the Purple Mist soundbank, but I can't see it. I see Solidtrax Bass, Aggressive Edges and Mountain Climber but nothing that says Purple Mist. What am I missing?

[FathomSynth]

(I think Purple Mist is only part of the Film Score bundle, but I'll check).

My thoughts also, but a significant number of people here feel that a machine lock would alienate too many people, and I tend to agree with them.

The unzip is too weak, and the machine lock is too strong and annoying.

It would be nice if there were something in between, and I know people think there is, but the in-between option is really only license marketing, not an actually implementable solution. The reason I say that because if you think about it logically, everything is just a code unless you machine lock it. So any code can be shared, which basically makes it no different than the unzip password.

I know people have suggested the uhe solution, but I don't yet really understand it, yet. I have bought from them before and personally I found it far more complex and less secure than the solution I coded which is one button press.

I tend to think of things as an engineer, like what is really going on under the hood, and no matter what license system you use, once you have it installed you can always give it to someone else. The only way to prevent this is for the software to check the PC name and hardware configuration it is running on and compare it to the same data used to create the key, and literally not run unless they match. That is the only way.

This solution is simply not hackable in the first degree since the only way is to mimik the application environment, which in this case is desired machine name which is encrypted and there's no way to know what the desired machine name the application is looking for. To hack a machine lock you need to hack the application binary code itself not the environment, essentially replacing the application binary code which is checking the key with code that accepts the key and this requires a development environment, and it is extremely difficult to do and no hacker is going to bother with that much trouble unless there is some serious cash involved, or they really hate you enough to hack your software.

That is why I really liked my solution (which is already coded and works great) but I agree with everyone here that it is simply too late to spring this on everyone who already has the product, so I will only use it on the next generation which will be a different synth.

The other thought I had is that if buying the product for $32 bucks is less of a hassle, literally, than calling up a friend for the code, most normal people are just going to buy it, the price is really that low. $180, no, but $32, yes, it's just under the envelope.

Someone made the point earlier (I forget who), that having too many features in Mono is a much bigger factor than license protection, and that was a good point.

So we are going to stick with what we have for Fathom Pro product line.

[courtjestr]

(I think Purple Mist is only part of the Film Score bundle, but I'll check).

The webpage for Fathom Pro Ultimate Bundle lists Purple Mist as being part of the bundle and the zip file I received has a PDF for Purple Mist. I am wondering if the bank is there but just not labelled as Purple Mist.

[FathomSynth]

You're right, Purple Mist is missing from the download.

OK I sent you a PM with updated download links.

I also corrected the purchase download.

Thanks for alerting me to this.

[courtjestr]

You're right, Purple Mist is missing from the download.

OK I sent you a PM with updated download links.

I also corrected the purchase download.

Thanks for alerting me to this.

Thanks for looking into this! However, I have not received a PM from you with the updated links.

[Distorted Horizon]

Maybe a bunch of different not so annoying protection thingys?

Watermark each synth with name, adding a ton of different "remove this piece of code and in a week this other thing stops working" etc, altering the code you've written activates a scheme where the plugin tries to contact you over catweb.. Tons of options

[Tj Shredder]

The unzip is too weak, and the machine lock is too strong and annoying.

It would be nice if there were something in between, and I know people think there is, but the in-between option is really only license marketing, not an actually implementable solution. The reason I say that because if you think about it logically, everything is just a code unless you machine lock it. So any code can be shared, which basically makes it no different than the unzip password.
....
I tend to think of things as an engineer, like what is really going on under the hood, and no matter what license system you use, once you have it installed you can always give it to someone else. The only way to prevent this is for the software to check the PC name and hardware configuration it is running on and compare it to the same data used to create the key, and literally not run unless they match. That is the only way.

I think there would be something in between. Lock it not to the machine, lock it to the person. Something nobody wants to share that easily. For example the password to your computer combined with the user name. It could create a key which is stored in the system wide keychain and would only work if the user name matches as well. The user name should be printed on the splash screen and in the info box...
Its not so important to have a unhackable solution. On the contrary, if it is easy to hack (for example change your username or set your date for time locked licenses) but create some annoying unconvenience, people would finally buy it if they use it on a regular basis. And its not really interesting for professional hackers to start to modify the code, which you cannot really prevent. Even if you encrypt the code, while the app is running, its uncrypted...
At the moment its enough to share a password which makes it way too easy...
The pirated version simply needs to be annoying and the licensed version has to be easy going...

[Gamma-UT]

Reaper and U-he also display the licensee's name.
The most screentime I ever get

I also get a home address from a decade ago in Alchemy (the Camel version).